Eureka
Run a plant that makes three products on six machines, first your way, then the TOC way. Find the drum, pick the right product mix and release work with a rope, then compare the results.
What you’ll learn
- Why a “paradise plant” still loses money: releasing all the material at once, big batches and keeping every machine busy create piles, late assemblies and parts “stolen” by the wrong product.
- Identify the constraint: compare each machine’s load for the full demand with the time it has.
- Exploit it: rank products by throughput per minute of the constraint, not by price or margin per unit.
- Subordinate with Drum-Buffer-Rope: plan the drum first, release material on its schedule, keep a buffer in front of it and use small batches elsewhere.
- Focus: separate planning from execution, watch the drum, and accept that other machines will sometimes stand idle.
Eureka is based on the operations simulation Mohit runs in his TOC workshops: two rounds, a debrief in between, and the same plant both times, so the only thing that changes is how it’s managed.